Pop-up style dispensers have been used for many years to dispense individual folded sheet products such as facial tissues or the like. In general, pop-up dispensers typically include a container and a stack or clip of prefolded interfolded tissues disposed within the container. The tissues may be C-folded or V-folded so that once the top tissue in the clip is withdrawn, subsequent sheets are individually presented for individual use.
One problem that has persisted through the years concerns the user being able to identify the proper location at which to grasp the top sheet to remove it through the opening in the container. Quite commonly with present commercial tissue containers, the user ends up tearing tissues, separating tissue plies, or dispensing multiple tissues when attempting to remove the top tissue. Furthermore, many commercial tissue dispensers include a plastic film over the opening of the container. Once the top tissue has been raised through a dispensing slit in the plastic film, subsequent tissues are held in an upright position by the plastic film for individual use. If the user has to search with his or her fingers to identify the proper location to grasp the top sheet, the plastic film can become distorted. Particularly with larger size containers, this may result in fall-backs, which refers to subsequent tissues dropping back down into the container rather than staying upright and ready for use.
A number of solutions have been proposed to address the problem of dispensing the top tissue in a pop-up dispenser. For example, it has been recommended that portions of the top sheet can be physically elevated, and thus, more readily identifiable from surrounding portions of the top sheet. It has also been suggested that the top sheet can be bonded to a removable panel of the carton, so that the top sheet is automatically raised through the opening when the panel is removed to form the opening. Other solutions to the problem have suggested adding separate strips within the stack of folded sheets, so that when the separate strips are pulled through the opening of the container, the top sheet is pulled through as well.
The foregoing and other proposed solutions attempting to facilitate proper removal of the top sheet in a pop-up dispenser have either been unsatisfactory or have created new problems. Most notably, past attempts to address the issue have increased the difficulty and/or expense of manufacturing pop-up dispensers, such as by adding new elements within the stack. Moreover, these past attempts to facilitate proper removal of the top tissue have not assisted the user in visually identifying the proper location at which to grasp the top sheet.
Therefore, what is lacking and needed in the art is an improved method and apparatus for dispensing tissue from a pop-up dispenser that facilitates identification and removal of the top tissue without wasting tissue.